Free Republic

The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that single-family housing starts fell 12% last month. Privately owned housing starts fell 7.8% to the lowest level since March 2005, while new building permits fell 5.5%. * * * Labor Department reported that wholesale prices rose 0.5% last month as oil and gasoline prices are approaching new record highs. * * * New findings from the April Experian/Gallup Personal Credit Index survey suggest that many Americans believe [the housing bubble may burst] * * * National Housing Bubble Seventy-one percent of consumers believe it is very likely (24%) or somewhat likely (47%) that housing...

Global justice advocates are urging U.S.-based companies that profit from chocolate and gold sales on Valentine's Day to do more to help the people and the environment where the key ingredients for their goods are originally produced. A coalition of human rights and development groups, led by California-based Global Exchange, is meeting Friday with executives at the headquarters of M&M/Mars at the company's headquarters near Washington, D.C. to ask them to start selling Fair Trade-certified chocolate--so that West African cocoa farmers won't need to use abusive child labor to make an adequate living. The meeting is part of a national...